Guilty in $1M elex theft
By LAURA ITALIANO
Last Updated: 7:01 AM, October 22, 2011
Posted: 12:39 AM, October 22, 2011
Yes, he was robbed -- but no tears should be shed for Mayor Bloomberg, jurors in the $1.1 million mayoral campaign cash-swipe trial said yesterday after convicting thieving political consultant John Haggerty.

“We didn’t feel Mayor Bloomberg was a victim,” juror Stephen Conroy said yesterday, moments after he and fellow panelists found Haggerty guilty of grand-larceny and money-laundering charges carrying anywhere from zero to 15 years’ prison time.

Manhattan prosecutors proved during a three-week trial that Haggerty had promised to spend the mayor’s $1.1 million on a massive Election Day ballot-security operation -- complete with line items for imaginary cars, hotel rooms and 1,355 poll workers -- but used most of the loot to buy himself a house instead.

“There was so much money being thrown around” without any accountability, Conroy said after the verdict, noting that the mayor spent more than $109 million of his own cash to win his fourth term in 2009 without ever auditing the spending, or even ever asking for the missing $1.1 million back.

“It’s like losing $100 bucks for you and me,” the juror said.

“That was what the defendant was banking on,” agreed juror Michael Boice. “The fact that a lot of money is being spent.”

Added juror Piper Gray: “Now, I’m probably never going to donate to a campaign. Or at least do some pretty good research”

Still, prosecutors demanded -- and received -- a $250,000 bail for Haggerty, who won’t be sentenced until Nov. 4.

The conniving consultant’s face reddened as he stood up at the defense table, emptied his suit pockets, removed his trademark green necktie, and let court officers cuff his hands behind his back.

Lead rackets prosecutor Eric Seidel had asked for twice as much bail, arguing that six months before the theft, Haggerty had sent an e-mail to Maura Keaney, the Bloomberg campaign’s head of field operations, in which he mentioned having an Irish passport -- a document never presented to officials.

Haggerty was responding to a Keaney e-mail in which she boasted that she was more Irish because “I was born there. I eat black pudding.”

According to a copy obtained by The Post, Haggerty wrote: “I have a house there and an Irish passport and an Irish Terrier named Seamus. I can drink you under the table and went to many more Wolfetones concerts than you did. I am sure that I have been interrogated many more times by British ‘personnel’ than you have. So there!”

Haggerty insisted through lawyer Dennis Vacco that the e-mail was “a joke,” then pleaded personally to remain free.

“I never had an Irish passport! I don’t have an Irish passport!” he told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ronald Zweibel. “I was joking.”

Said the judge, “I’m not convinced that it was a joke.”

Zweibel has given no indication of whether he will throw Haggerty in prison, but he has talked tough about the case in the past, calling the crimes “serious” in a pretrial decision and saying Haggerty was “not Robin Hood.”

A Bloomberg spokesman called the verdict a vindication of the mayor, who had been called to testify as the star prosecution witness.

“For months, the defense has attempted to cast aspersions on Mayor Bloomberg and make him the focus of this case. We are pleased that the jury saw through their cynical efforts and reached a verdict based on the evidence and the law,” spokesman Jason Post told The Post after the verdict.

laura.italiano@nypost.com

For all the articles on this case:
THE 'FAT LADY' SANG HAGGERTYGATE IS GUILTY